Well he has kept a 16 page thread about Wigan going through the off season over on RedVee, got to admire his dedication

It does not matter what year it is aggresion thrives in the game

Saints are very much the litmus test in terms of who is the superior team in the competition. They are are the best all round team in terms of their starting 17 by a country mile.

Their defence and work rate is first class.

Their Achilles heel I suspect is their strength in depth. If they keep relatively injury free I can’t see anyone getting near them.

If referees start to give free kicks for moving off the mark they will also struggle. A minor snipe but at some point a referee will slate them for it.

But to be fair you’ve got to tip the hat to them after Cunningham’s disastrous couple of seasons since then they have been very impressive

They’ve set a very impressive standard hopefully we can at least give it a go this season after last season’s lamentable performances.

A backrow of Bateman, Isa and Farrell won’t cut it for us when we play them. Too small and one dimensional.

It's possible squad depth may be an issue for them if they get hit hard with injury - outside of that 17 they have Amor, Grace and Bell as experienced first teamers but not much else outside of that. I'm not convinced Welsby has the same passing game as Coote and he definitely has a mistake in him - I think Woolf with his Tonga hat on will be tempted at some point to play Hopoate at fullback with Hurrell at centre.

But clutching at straws really when looking for a weakness - the real answer (and the best one for the sport as a whole) is for other clubs to be really harsh with themselves and their decision making and demand higher standards.

I couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph. Absolutely spot on.

I don’t know what to make of Welsby. He makes some sublime movements in a game but has the “gate” of a non athlete. A bit of a freak as you say an accident waiting to happen but for me continues to make some really great moments in a game. Let’s see how he performs in the World Cup. As a Brit I hope he over performs but as a Wiganer a knock or two in the Derby would be gratefully accepted.

Saints are class, I don’t buy into there depth issues too much, like us lesser know players with squad numbers 23+ will be good talents. I’d never really heard of Dodd this time last year.

They are the standard we need to be competing with.

The referees did their best to spoil that game last night.

The referees are a perennial problem, but they didn't have much bearing on last night's result. Saints were class, Catalan were rubbish.

Still getting every 50/50 call I see. Like someone else mentioned, I don't think Walmsley has played the ball correctly for 3 seasons.

Walmsley plays for a penalty every time he plays the ball he moves forward into the defender ive seen penalties given that way.

I had to laugh on one of the last plays of the game when Walmsley basically got up and had a discussion with the ref for a couple of seconds about how clearly he’d felt there had been an infringement and the ref took his time, agreed and give the penalty.

That’s the closest I’ve seen to a player refereeing the game themselves. He’s certainly from the JP school of building relationships with the official is Big Al.

I said that to my sons last night.
Walmsley is a fantastic player but wants a free kick for lots of tackles whilst walking forward before playing the ball.
At some point a referee will pick up on this and it will be interesting to see how they react to it.

They got away with at least one forward pass for a try but it didn't even get a mention from Terry while he regaled about their great rugby.

For all that they are very professional and have an incredible defence. A pity they didnt test themselves against Penrith.

Sadly they're still the team to beat, do the basics to a very high standard and punish every error.
I thought the turning point was after Davis made that 50m break then dropped the ball as he was getting up, Catalans never seemed to have any ball or territory after that, game over.

It was interesting that during the set picked by John Wilkin to highlight their defence that, for the ptb under the posts, the Saints defenders were literally stood side by side. Get pinged for that as they should have been and Catalans were 30 yards down field instead of being trapped in their own 20. It's fine margins at times between looking good and bad and the referees have a big part to play.

That said, Saints were excellent and deserved their luck when it came. Catalans were an indisciplined mess and just awful! I thought it spoke volumes that they were actually on top when concentrating on playing rugby. The turning point came when Davies tried to milk a penalty instead of getting on with the job (although, to be fair, he was reacting to yet another Saints player not being penalised for pushing their luck in the tackle). They quickly spiralled downhill from that point.

Snap!

There first try 3 yards forward.

That’s the one I was referring to.
Makinson was stretching to catch it in front of him.

Looked like a blatant forward with the referee and touch judge perfectly positioned.

I wouldn’t disagree with 3 tries either.

Catalan will struggle with that HB pairing.
An old man and the other with no particular talent.

They used to call it "moving off the mark " IIRC.

They still do if you're not Alex Walmsley

The diving in this KR and Cas game is cringe worthy.

Few KR players need sacking to be honest. The theatrics are borderline football level.

Two Cas players banned for alleged high tackles when both the players had lost their feet both the Cas players sin binned on the night.Both incidents were not intentional the games going soft.

i've only seen the Fairaimo one on social media

How you can cop a 2 game ban for that beggars belief. I get the rules state that the onus is on the tackler to get it right, but if the player falls to the floor like the winger did, what is the guy supposed to do in the 0.05 of second before he hits him. He is running full tilt. If the winger stays stood up it would be a perfectly timed tackle, the possibility of dislodging the ball, knocking the winger back 5 yards or both. The winger basically surrenders, and thus the tackle is deemed 10 minutes as dangerous, and then to rub salt into the wounds gets 2 games for it too.

I guess that is going to be the new tactic now to nullify the high bomb. Take it, fall to the ground and hope that the oncoming defenders time their runs to perfection, so they get binned and banned.

I suppose the answer to that is if the tackler only has 0.05 of a second to adjust to a ball carrier changing direction they aren't in control and they have to tackle in a way that allows for any late movement. If the winger stays stood up it's a perfectly timed tackle but the winger didn't stay stood up, so it's not a perfectly timed tackle.

People love it when the tackler hits a player catching the ball as soon as it's in his hands. It looks great. The problem is the receiver is in an incredibly vulnerable position and they have every right to try to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge. Just because a player is running full tilt from 40 yards away doesn't mean they should be excused for high contact. If anything it means they should take even greater care because that's where some real damage can be done.

It may take away some of the big collisions in the game, but we're seeing more and more cases of players being advised to retire by doctors due to head injuries while they are still in their 20's. Without changes we'll end up with players barely having careers into double digits. Even accidental collisions and knocks can cause issues so it's important to do as much as possible to try to change player behaviour to minimise all head contact.

Did somebody watch Dodgeball last night???

On another note, I also think the attacking player has a duty to not put himself in a vulnerable position so as not to cause injury to himself, I appreciate he may want to drop like a brick to avoid the big hit but by doing so has put himelf in a position of being hit high, by lowering his body hight.

I have played the game for many years and have taken many big hits, some legal and some not so legal, but if someone swings a forearm at me for a big hit to my ribs and I drop to the floor intentionally and get hit in the head, then I think I may have already had too many head knocks